How to Make a Birthday Perfect
by Cedfia123
Summary: Sofia's 18th birthday hadn't gone as she had hoped. Queen Miranda witnesses the normally grumpy Royal Sorcerer attempting to make it better. Will Cedric and Sofia keep dancing around what's so obvious to a hidden observer? Or will they finally be honest with each other? (Cedfia)


**A/N: Well this is my first Sofia the First Fic.**

 **This is what happens when you have a three year old who's obsessed with the show and you, as the adult, watch so much of it, read so much of it, and color so much of it you feel you have start "adult-ifying" it in your head or you'll go insane. And then you go looking for fanfic to feed your sudden obsession with "Adult" Sofia and discover you're not the only with a perverted mind! YEAH!**

 **I've noticed that other fics make it explicit that this is** **older** **Sofia and not child Sofia (because ew, that would be not fun or sexy- which is the whole purpose of this exercise). So I'll do the same.**

 **Disclaimer: Sofia is 18, Cedric is 34, Disney owns them both and everyone else mentioned below. I'm just perving on them for the sake of my sanity!**

 **I should also mention that I've jumped in time without any explanation of how we got there. So please assume that somewhere in the 10 years between the show and this fic Cedric has stopped trying to steal the Amulet of Avalor, has become a much better, if not a totally good, person and all of this is thanks to a precocious Princess who makes him feel all sorts of inconvenient things.**

.o~O*O~o.

Queen Miranda poked her head through her youngest daughter's bedroom door. Today had been Sofia's eighteenth birthday. Miranda and Amber (but mostly Amber) had thrown her a huge celebration complete with a ball that had lasted till the stroke of Midnight.

Miranda knew Sofia wasn't a grand party person, but Amber and Rolland both insisted the level of mania which had led up to today's festivities was warranted now that the kingdom's youngest Princess had officially come of age.

Sophia had seemed to bear the whole thing with good humor throughout most of the day, her inherent desire to please others kicking into high gear. But somewhere during the night something must have gone wrong and Sofia suddenly disappeared. Miranda had been searching for her fruitlessly ever since.

Miranda was about to turn and leave when something caught her eye, a small crystal container whose contents glowed softly in the dim light of the empty bedroom. Walking over to it she saw it had a small purple bow tied around the neck of the bottle and a card underneath.

Picking up the little card she couldn't help but read the note scrawled in a somewhat chaotic hand.

 _Princess Sofia,_

 _I know you've been worried about your little furry friend and the thought of his untimely demise spoiling your birthday has been causing me pangs of unease for some days now. Give him this potion sprinkled on top of some of his favorite food and he should be good as new and getting underfoot as though he were youngster again._

 _Happy Birthday,_

 _Cedric_

Miranda couldn't help the smile that touched her face. It appeared she wasn't the only one searching for Sofia tonight. So often, when her daughter was little, the Queen had been afraid Cedric would finally have enough of Sofia's exuberant adoration and say or do something to irrevocably damage her daughter's warm and outgoing nature.

She'd been happy to be proven wrong about that. Instead of growing tired of Sofia's constant hanging on, Cedric seemed to warm to her as he apparently hadn't ever warmed to another person. Their friendship had given Rolland pause from time to time, but she'd steadfastly defended it. Her daughter would choose her friends, not the King.

Leaving Sofia's room Miranda decided to give up for the night. If Sofia was making it this hard to find her, than she didn't want to be found. The Queen would give her the space she so obviously needed tonight and talk to her in the morning.

Not feeling all that tired Miranda decided to take a walk down to the ballroom and make sure no one needed any guidance taking it apart appropriately.

As she approached, she saw the castle staff had already taken care of everything with their usual efficiency. Approaching from the balcony entrance she could see the room was cleared and perfectly clean, only the dim light from a few wall sconces still burning.

Miranda was halfway out the door when she heard a sniffle. Turning back she saw a shape bent over in a chair at the far corner of the room: Sofia.

Her daughter was still in her plum colored ball gown, her tiara on the floor beside her and her elaborate updo of just a few hours ago hastily taken down with obviously shaky hands. Sofia's long, soft curls hid her face and fell over her shoulders as she cried softly into her hands.

Miranda was just about to go to her when the ground level doors to the ballroom opened.

"Princess, I've been looking for you." Cedric's unique accent echoed off the walls of the nearly empty room.

Miranda knew she either needed to make her own presence known or leave the friends in private. And she should decide rather quickly.

She made a third choice instead. She stepped to her left and hid behind the red velvet drapes that framed the door, invisible to the rooms two occupants, but able to see everything that happened.

She knew she was stretching her maternal rights somewhat thin by spying on her daughter, but something compelled her to stay.

Sofia had looked up that the sound of the door. The tear streaks on her cheeks and her swollen, red eyes where clear even in the dim light. Cedric must have seen them too because he moved from the door to her side with a speed the Queen would not have thought the laconic Sorcerer possessed.

Kneeling down in front of Sofia's chair, Cedric reached his hand up, cupping her face and using his thumb to brush away the tears staining her right cheek.

"What's wrong Dearest? What has you crying on your birthday of all days?"

Sofia only cried harder at his soft words and put her hand over his, securing it as she rubbed her cheek against it.

"You'll laugh at me if I tell you." She managed to get out with some measure of clarity.

"Nonsense," he scoffed, "if something has made my favorite apprentice cry than I already know it can't possibly be trivial. You aren't the type of young lady to have a hysterical fit over a ripped dress or a chipped tiara."

Sofia smiled a smile as big as the ocean at his words of comfort and praise and Miranda wondered when they had become so close? She knew they were friends, after a certain fashion, and spent an uncommon amount of time working on magic together. But their relationship had obviously moved far beyond that of an eager, adoring child and the adult who grudgingly tolerated that adoration. When had this happened? Did they even know what was happening between them?

"Hugo…," Sofia trailed off, a shiver passing through her body. Miranda couldn't see Cedric's face, but the stiffening of his back and shoulders was unmistakable as he and the Queen suddenly feared where Sofia's confession might be going.

Taking a deep breath her daughter tried again.

"Hugo kissed me. I didn't give him permission to and I didn't want him too, but he did." Sofia got her confession out with a sort of rushed delivery, as though she were a balloon whose air was escaping all at once.

After a moment Cedric's voice filled the room again, where it had been comforting and kind only moments ago it was now dark, dangerous sounding in its almost feline-like smoothness.

"I see. This boy took liberties with you in a ballroom full of people and not a single one of them had the decency to step in and help you?" The question hung in the air like a noose, Sofia's only answer a shake of her head and a soft sob.

"You see," Sofia started to defend her friends after a few long seconds of silence, "well, James was busy dancing with Hildegard and Amber was flirting with, well, almost everyone else and they weren't anywhere near me, and everyone else thinks Hugo is so handsome and charming they probably thought I'd be ecstatic to be kissed by him."

"But you weren't?" The kindness had returned to Cedric's voice and the hand that had held Sofia's face this whole time had moved higher to stroke her hair in long, soothing motions.

Miranda would have been furious at Sofia's confession but she had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach that Hugo's days on this earth could now be precisely numbered. The way Cedric had sounded only moments before…the boy had better look over his shoulder every second of the rest of his potentially short life.

"No. I've known Hugo for a long time and his good looks go exactly skin deep. On the inside he's an ugly person who doesn't have the courage to change for better. He isn't someone I'd ever want touching me like that." Sofia sighed a little guiltily then. "Still I probably shouldn't have kneed him in the groin for it."

Cedric suddenly let out an uncharacteristic snort.

"You kneed him in the crotch?" He sounded disbelieving yet filled with pride all at once.

"I did." She smiled down at him, nuzzling his hand again as his strokes brought it back to her face.

"That's my girl." The pride was unmistakable now. "Don't waste an ounce of guilt on that entitled little prick. You absolutely should have put the boy in his place and you seem to have done so quite magnificently…for the moment." The sinister lilt returned again and Miranda shuddered a little.

"It's just that," Sofia's voice trailed off again as she broke their eye contact for the first time, looking out the large glass door next to her. "It's just that what Hugo did started me thinking. You know I don't like big parties, but Amber and dad where so insistent I felt like I couldn't say no. Then Hugo kissed me and I don't think he really cared whether I wanted him to do that or not, and I just started to feel like this life I'm living, this playing at being a Princess, it's like a gilded trap."

Cedric's head tilted questioningly at that.

"I know, it sounds horribly ungrateful to say something like that doesn't it? So many people have so many dire problems and here I am well fed, waited on hand and foot, given anything I ask for, dressed in the finest clothes. But… it seems like the price for all this comfort is the relinquishment of my will. It's my job to always be kind, to always be accommodating, to always say yes when other people make requests of me. What if one day some "handsome, charming" Prince comes for me? Will they all expect me to just give myself because he asks that I do? Don't I get a say? What's the point of teaching me so much if they all expect me to sit mutely by while my decisions are made for me?

All I wanted was to spend my birthday with my friends and family and… and to dance with you. That's it. Why is wanting so little asking so much?"

At that Cedric's shoulders seemed to slump.

"I'm sorry Princess, I should have been here as you asked me to be. I got caught up in a potion and lost track of time. But as to the rest of it…. Do you know the reason I stopped shooing you out of my workshop and started really teaching you instead?"

Sofia shook her head.

"I have wondered though."

"It's because I realized that young, hopeful, and naïve as you were, you possessed a keener mind and a wiser soul than most of the supposed grownups around you. Hearing your insight into the world never ceases to amaze me.

What you say, the fears you've put to words tonight, they will be true for some of your friends. Some of the girls you danced with tonight will be forced by their parents into marriages they neither want nor will ever grow to enjoy. Some of them will fight it, some of them will go willingly, or if not willingly than at least passively, but go they will. Not you Sofia.

Your parents won't do that to you. Your father married a shoe maker and he did it for love. Do you think he'd bend you to a marriage you didn't want? I don't. I think he will let you find love in your own time. And when you do I think he'll suffer the pangs all fathers do when they realize they're no longer the most important man in their daughter's life… and then he'll let you go. To have the happily ever after you deserve more than anyone I know."

Cedric's words might have been the perfect balm to his young friend's fears, but Miranda sensed a deep sadness emanating from the older man as he talked about Sofia's bright and happy future. A future, she couldn't help but notice, in which he hadn't included himself.

"You really think so?" She asked softly, hope lighting her features.

"I do. Otherwise your mother might knee him."

Sofia chortled quite unlady-like at that and nodded her head.

"Mom would." She agreed.

"Good. I'm glad we agree. Now, no more tears. No more melancholy. It's still your birthday after all." Cedric's hand dropped to his side when he saw she was pulling herself together.

Sofia dried her eyes and nodded with almost childlike acquiescence. As if Cedric had only to say "all better" and somehow it was.

"Did you say you were working on a potion?" She prodded, suddenly coming alive. "What kind of potion?"

"Your Birthday present if you must know. I'm sorry, truly, that I wasn't here, but it turned out to be trickier than I had originally anticipated. Wormwood may never forgive either of us. He lost several tail feathers in the aftermath of my first attempt this morning."

Sofia laughed a little at that and shook her head.

"Poor wormwood, being a familiar can be thankless at times can't it?"

"Please," Cedric drew the word out sarcastically, "that bird lives better and has a higher opinion of his worth than most people." Cedric's droll delivery made Sofia laugh again. The sound was bright as day and so beautiful. Miranda knew she wasn't the only one affected by it.

"Well? What is it?" Sofia was practically bouncing now.

"Ah, ah, ah. You'll get nothing out of me. It's a surprise. You'll just have to wait till you retire to your room to see it."

Sofia's excitement was always infectious and Miranda couldn't help but smile at the almost joyful sound of Cedric's voice. She had been right to allow their friendship. They were…good for each other.

"Oh," Sofia's voice fell just a little bit. "I'm enjoying being with you so much I don't want to go to bed just yet." Soft, liquid, blue eyes pleaded prettily with the Sorcerer not to send her off to sleep just yet.

Cedric stood at that and pulled his wand from its hidden pocket in his sleeve. Turning away from her, he spoke in that magical language Miranda sometimes found amusingly silly. A few waves of his wand and a few unintelligible words later the candles in the Chandelier burst to life illuminating the room in a soft, almost romantic glow. Another wave, a few more words and music began to play from nowhere. It was Sofia's favorite waltz.

Cedric turned back to her. Replacing his wand, he moved his hands to his waist, untying the sash that belted his Sorcerer's Robes. Shrugging the heavy shroud off, he placed it gently on the back of the chair Sofia still sat in.

Without his Robes, Miranda could see that years of Sofia's care had finally filled out the Sorcerer's physique. He was still lanky, long and lean, but he'd lost the look of man who survived on nothing more than magic and air.

"Since I was not here to claim it earlier, my dearest Princess, may I most humbly beg a dance as a special boon on your Birthday?" Cedric bowed low and held out his hand to her in a most courtly gesture.

Sofia's face brightened like Wassalia night, her hand coming up to rest over her heart as though she were trying to calm its racing, before placing it in his outstretched one and rising. Once standing she lowered herself in a deep, graceful curtsey.

"How could I say no to such a request on my birthday?" She said regally, but then burst out in a sweet peel of laughter that warmed the expanse of the large room. "Or any other day for that matter."

They rose from their courtesies at the same time and moved in tandem, coming together with what Miranda could only describe as a kinetic magnetism. Sofia's left hand went to Cedric's right shoulder; Cedric's right arm wound around her waist, his hand splaying wide against her back. Their other hands clasped and they began to move to the music with a grace Miranda hadn't expected.

She'd spent many of Sofia's birthdays watching her daughter extract dances from the Court Sorcerer, embarrassing the painfully socially awkward young man he'd been in the process. On the earliest of those occasions the youngest princess had been little enough to have to stand on his feet.

So she was shocked to see them move together now as adults, almost as if they were one being in two parts.

"Thank you." Sofia said somewhat breathlessly as they turned around the room. "My Birthday is nearly perfect now."

"Only nearly? I must be getting lax in my old age." He smiled at Sofia in that sarcastic, teasing way that seemed to be only for her.

"You aren't old, Cedric," Sofia's earnest adoration of him was painfully apparent.

"I am sixteen years your senior Dearest. While you have been growing up, I have been growing old."

"You don't look any different than you did the day I met you." She said, curiosity lighting her voice. "Not that you should be falling to pieces at thirty-four or anything, but still.

"Yes well, when you pass your examination before the Masters next spring and become a sorceress in your own right I'll teach how to do that particular bit of alchemy."

"So you're saying… we could live forever?" Sofia's voice had become breathy again, wistful, as if she were spinning out that particular future for them in her mind.

Cedric coughed at that as though he were choking on something.

"Not forever," he managed, clearing his throat "but certainly you could live far longer than a normal human lifespan. The longest I've heard of is three hundred years."

Sofia wrinkled her nose at that.

"You said I could live. I'm not sure I'd want something like that if you weren't intending on joining me."

As they danced the space between their bodies had evaporated. They were pressed close now. Sofia's hand had crept from Cedric's shoulder up to his neck to twist into the ends of his dark hair. His own hand had slipped lower on her back holding her just above the point where her skirt flared out, keeping her flush against his chest.

"I'm in love with you. You know that don't you?" Her daughter's voice was clear and earnest and so full of hope that Miranda felt her heart break for her little girl.

"I know," was Cedric's simple, equally earnest answer, said with wealth of humility and not a little sadness. "I'm in love with as well. I don't remember a time when I wasn't. You've wormed your way into my heart so completely sometimes I think you live there."

"I want to. Coming home would make this birthday perfect."

They stopped moving then, Sofia lifting up onto her tiptoes and pressing her lips to Cedric's.

He didn't push her away but neither did he return her kiss. Sensing that something was wrong Sofia broke the kiss.

"I don't understand. We love each other. You said you love me!" Tears where back in her eyes now, but Cedric shushed her gently, wiping them away with tender kisses to her wet cheeks.

"I do love you, more than anything or anyone on this earth. But Sofia I'm not the man for you."

"How can you say that?" She countered even as she wound her arms around his neck.

He returned her gesture wrapping his arms around her waist and moving them again in time to the music.

"On top of being over a decade older than you, I have no fortune and no throne. You deserve better. You deserve someone young , titled, handsome…and good. I am none of those things."

Sofia pulled back far enough to look him in the eye.

"You may not have a title or a fortune, but you _are_ good, you're wonderful. And I think given our earlier conversation you should leave me to decide who I find beautiful and who I don't. And to me there is no one more beautiful than you."

Cedric scoffed at that. It was a harsh, self-deprecating sound.

"Very well, if you say so I'm Adonis made flesh and blood. But I am not good Dearest. Sometimes I wish I had the courage to admit to you how truly villainous I've been."

Sofia brushed her lips against his again and as before he didn't fight her. But Miranda saw the hands holding Sofia clench till they turned white. He was losing his battle with restraint quickly.

"I know you haven't always been the person you've wanted to be, and I know that could make anyone desperate enough do things they later come to regret. When you're ready to tell me I'll be ready to hear it, but Cedric… I forgive you."

A disbelieving scoff again.

"How can you forgive me when you don't know what I've done… tried to do." His voice rang with sarcasm and something that winked at self-loathing.

"Because I've watched you change over the years. I've watched you become stronger, more confident and more good. Unlike Hugo, you've had the courage to become better. Whatever it is you did or tried to do, it's in the past. I don't want the past from you. I want the future.

You said you thought I'd have a different fate from my friends. Well I'm not waiting for someone's permission to make my own choices. That's somewhat defeatist don't you think? I'm making my choice now.

I want you. I want you now, I want you always. We can work out the detail later, but the only future I see for myself that makes me happy, is the one where you and I spend the next several centuries learning every secret magic has to offer by day, and loving each other through the night.

If you don't want that, than tell me and I'll respect your choice. I'll never embarrass you or myself with talk like this again. But I'm asking you to respect my right to make my own choices. Not to reject me because you think you know what's best for me better than I do.

I'm not a little girl anymore, and I'm not as naïve as you seem to think. I know there's darkness in you. If I'm completely honest with myself, it's part of what draws me to you. It's part of what makes you so alluring to me. But that darkness is only a part of you. There's just as much, if not more, good in you. You don't see it, but I do.

I don't love you in spite of your nature, I love you because of it. All those charmingly handsome princes with their titles and fortunes and thrones, their all missing the one thing only you have."

Cedric's only response was a raised eyebrow.

"None of them are you. And unfortunately for them _you_ , is the only thing I'm looking for in a man."

Sofia might have been about to say more but it seemed with those words she won the argument. Cedric silenced her by slanting his mouth down over hers and tightening his arms around her, holding her like letting go might kill him. It was a passionate fierceness that made Miranda wistful for the time in her youth when she'd first met Sofia's father. He'd been older too, and reluctant to claim the youth of a women nearly half his age.

If he were here now he might have said that he'd been right in the end. But looking down at the beautiful child they'd made out of their love, she couldn't agree. It had all been worth it, all the happiness, all the love, all the pain, all the grief.

Miranda knew it was time for her leave. She'd been here, a shadow reliving a little of her own youth through her daughters intense and finally requited love long enough.

.o~O*O~o.

Down on the dance floor Cedric lifted his mouth away from Sofia's only enough for them both to take in the air their lungs had begun to scream for.

"Well then", he said peppering her face and neck with little kisses. "I suppose the choice is made. Unfortunately for all the other women banging down my door, _you_ are what I've been waiting for all these years.

Sofia laughed at that, giddy from the knowledge he was finally, _finally_ hers.

"Those other women better clear out if they know what's good for them. You're mine now Sorcerer. They look at you sideways and they'll find out they've messed with the wrong Princess." She scowled at him adorably and it was all he could do not to kiss that fierce little look from her face, until he realized he didn't have to strangle those impulses any more.

How could life have seen fit to give him such a gift? How, when he was so unworthy? He could contemplate his good luck for ages without coming up with a plausible answer. But he would leave that to another time. Right now he was going to stop stifling his inclinations when it came to her.

He bent low and took her precious lips with his own again, savoring the way she pressed them, and every other part of her against him. Astonished by the way she parted them to give him entrance to the sweetness of her mouth, no fear, no shyness, no hesitation.

When they parted he felt dizzy, lightheaded, overwhelmed with love for her and compelled to make a confession he might not have otherwise.

"If I'm the darkness, than you're the light illuminating my world. You exile the gloom, banish my sadness and doubt. We fit together don't we, yin and yang, darkness and light."

Sofia laughed sweet and low in his ear as he said that. She snuggled impossibly closer to him, burying her face in the crook of his neck and leaving little butterfly kisses below his ear.

"We are. We're so different. But we belong together. There can't be light without darkness, or day without night. But the dark and the light, they meet each day at dawn and dusk and you told me once those where the most magical times of day?"

Sofia leaned up, taking a kiss of her own from Cedric and loving when he responded with equal fervor. Pulling back she leveled him with dark, heat filled eyes.

"I'm suddenly ready to go to bed", she whispered making him shiver with the implication of her suggestion.

She gasped when, instead of answering her, he kept one arm around her back, and bent down, hooking the other under her knees, picking her up as if she weighed nothing. She wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her head against his shoulder.

Cedric walked up to the chair which still held his robe.

"Pick it up and pull out my wand." He instructed, bending slightly forward so she could reach his discarded clothing.

Pulling out the wand she looked at him, an arched eyebrow conveying all the question she needed to ask.

"Pop quiz my apprentice. Let's see if you can get us to my tower without either of us having to take a step."

Sofia scoffed, in mock offense.

"I see you're going to be going soft on me now that we're a thing huh? I don't want any easy "A's" _master_."

"I hear a lot of talk and a great deal of bravado my young apprentice, and yet here we are, _still_ in the ballroom. And you may safely trust that no part of me intends to ever go _soft_ on you." He countered, making her body ache with impatience to have him.

Sofia raised Cedric's wand and spoke the magic words.

The ballroom stood suddenly dark, silent, and empty.

If the walls could talk they'd have one more secret to whisper tonight. But after centuries of witnessing momentous events they were good at holding their peace.


End file.
